Has COVID Made Us Mean(er)?

Spoiler alert, This post will end on a positive in spite of the title.

Please understand when I write this I don’t mean the actual virus I mean the repercussions from the virus and being quarantined, losing work, death, fear and on and on. It will eventually wear on anyone’s nerves. I am from the south where southern hospitality is a real thing. I guess maybe I am more sensitive to people acting more stressed, scared, mean or unfriendly or just not being themselves.

I go into a store and am working my way to the check out counter. A man is standing sort of not in line but just beside the line of people. I am not sure if he is observing the six feet social distancing or just waiting for someone. I ask him ” are you in line?”. He turns around and practically screams “YES I AM!! I HAVE BEEN STANDING HERE FOR ABOUT TWENTY FIVE MINUTES SO GOOD LUCK WITH THAT” Wow I didn’t know what to say I just stood there and waited for my turn remembering the day you could strike up a friendly conversation with other people waiting in line. Now you have to be six feet apart and if you’re wearing a mask no one can understand what you are saying anyway. I would like to say this was a one time incident but it hasn’t been. Remember this is the south and everyone talks to everyone. I am the queen of striking up conversations with people. My husband will say “who was that you were talking to?” I say I have no idea I just met them. That is the way it is where I am from. I will not stop being that way.

I guess I have noticed this shift mostly at work. I work in tourism, so yes things are different and people cannot just come and go at any time and expect no wait times or even the possibility of not visiting. To help with social distancing we do have long wait times. This makes some of our customers angry. Really angry. I have been verbally abused and threatened, on the phone, to the point I actually had to call the 911 help center and have them send extra patrol to our area. I know it was probably just someone blowing off steam but it was still very scary. You can’t be too careful. I think when people have this unreasonable reaction it is just because they are so fed up with the “new normal” way of doing things that they just take it out on the nearest person they can find. Not a good thing to do.

Some people berate you and make fun of you if you wear a mask or they glare at you if you don’t. I have been hit with both of these on several occasions.

You may be one of those people that have not let COVID interrupt your life, or so you think, you go on vacations, you go shopping and out to eat but it is still different. YOU KNOW IT IS!!! No matter what you do things are different and you feel it and you see it and there is not a dang thing you can do about it, it is affecting you in one way or another.

I go to work and I go to a few outings, I even went on a short trip with my sisters, and to the grocery store but nothing like I have done in the past. There is a big part of me that doesn’t mind because I am a bit of a home-body anyway. I wear a mask when I go out. I sanitize constantly. But there is also a big part of me that wants things to be just the way they were before COVID. I am not sure that will ever happen. No matter what I think this will leave a lasting memory or scar for most people. WahWahWah!!! I know I know. I am blessed that I haven’t had COVID or lost a loved one to it. We are in stressful times people. Be nice, be patient, be kind. When I say this I am yelling this to myself the loudest. I know it starts with me.

Now on the other hand I have also noticed some people being kinder and gentler and giving. Some people go out of their way to do for others during these trying times. Which way do you want to be remembered? we are making history here let’s make it the best we can moving forward. Too many bad, senseless and unthinkable things have happened this year. I hope we can end it on a better loving note. Are you with me?

Always remember,

Love your day your way!!!

And It All Came to a Grinding Halt!!!!

Sunday morning I was at home by myself with just the babies for company. I was enjoying some banana bread I had just baked. Oh and I have to tell you, I added chocolate chips to one of the loaves and it was amazing. It was about 8:00 AM and the wind was howling terribly. The trees were bending almost double and leaves were swirling outside the windows like we were in a hurricane. You can probably tell I’ve never actually been in a hurricane. I just knew my power was about to go out. That is one of the things about rural living that you have to get used to. So yes at approximately 8:05 AM Sunday morning my power clicked off. Just thinking about it jinxed me I guess. I sat there for a few minutes. My heat went off, my lights went out. My internet stopped working. I thought, well it may come back on in a few minutes. It didn’t. I went into the office and plugged in the rotary phone. Yes I still have one of those for just such occasions. I called the Utility company to report the outage. The automated voice at the other end told me that an outage had already been reported in our area. O.K. way to go distant neighbors!!!. I settled back in my recliner with Kitty Kitty on my lap and Scruffy snuggled against my leg and picked up a book I had been reading. I just can’t explain how cozy it was.

10:00 AM and still no power. I continued reading and napping and loving the weight of the warm babies on me. I dozed and dreamed and contemplated life. I may have gotten up for a small snack.

You may be wondering why I couldn’t do anything while my power was off. O.K. My power is tied to my pump for the water so I couldn’t use too much water because the pump couldn’t pump water without electricity. Just enough for drinking if I wanted to. So I really couldn’t do a lot of cleaning, right? No vacuuming or laundry could be done. So I was sort of trapped. Who am I kidding I sort of loved it!!! HEE HEE!!!! I felt very Little House on the Prairieish. But you know Laura Ingalls and that bunch never had power and it certainly didn’t stop them. Oh well that was a long time ago.

12:00 PM Still no power. I decided to drive to the top of our driveway and see if I could see anything that would have caused the power outage. I would have walked but honestly I have a fear of death by a falling tree. I’m sure there’s a name for this phobia. I don’t like to walk in the woods when the wind is blowing at hurricane strength. I drove to the top of the driveway and could immediately see power lines all over the road. I stopped!!! I didn’t even try to walk up on the road to see if a tree or pole was down or what caused all the lines to be down. I wasn’t sure if those were live wires or not. That was not for me to decide. Realizing that I couldn’t even drive out of the driveway with all of these wires down did make me feel a little trapped but I had no where I had to be.

I went home and called the power company and pressed the number 2 to say that Yes I did have additional information to report about the outage . I felt so proud. Within an hour I heard utility trucks at the top of my driveway and lots of noise from chainsaws.

Within another two hours the power was restored. By this time it was after 2:00 PM and the power had been out for over six hours. A nuisance? maybe. A wonderful opportunity to snuggle babies and catch up on reading with the interruption of my cell phone or anything else? DEFINITELY!!!!

Not a bad way to spend a Sunday. How was your weekend? How is your week going?

Turns out a lot of people were without power that day not just us rural country people. I wonder if they felt Little House on the Prairieish?

Always remember,

Love your day your way!!!

Another Sister Trip In The Books. 2020

The last few days have brought a wonderful kaleidoscope of color to our little area. The trees, which I thought were turning color rather slowly, have suddenly popped out in color like you wouldn’t believe!!! Orange, red and golden leaves are everywhere. I almost can’t drive down the road without stopping to gawk at the beauty. There couldn’t have been a better time to take a Sister Trip.

I think I have mentioned before that my sisters and I take a sister trip every year. We usually go to a condominium in Gatlinburg Tennessee, which is just about seventy miles from us in the Smoky Mountains. We stay at the same condo every year. Baskins Creek Condominiums, we love this place it is just perfect for us. Our sister trip was supposed to take place about six weeks ago but that was the same time Mark had a stay at Vanderbilt Hospital for the dreaded Shingles virus. So we postponed until this past week. We checked in on Sunday and left on Wednesday. The weather was perfect. We did a few fun things and ate at some wonderful restaurants. But we mostly stayed around he condo and enjoyed each other’s company.

I have mentioned my sister Sandy to you a lot. She is my go to for everything. She helps me take care of the babies when I have to be out of town. All I have to do is call her up and say “I need your help” and she is there. She is my rock. My niece Tammy who we also call our sister goes with us every year and just rounds out our group. We don’t get to see her as much and when she is with us it is so special. But this trip sort of focused on my oldest sister Pat, well she’s the oldest since my sister Carolyn, Tammy’s mom, passed away, Pat is a hoot. Everyone that she meets loves her. She is almost seventy years old but she has such a childlike youthfulness that you would never know it. She always makes the best friends no matter where she goes. Pat is the real deal. She will tell you exactly what she thinks and doesn’t try to impress anybody. Her husband passed away many years ago and me and the other sisters have sort of taken over helping watch out for her. There is nothing we wouldn’t do for each other. O.K. you get the picture, the sisters are incredibly close.

Pat told me that she wanted a cell phone, not a flip phone or anything like she had had in the past. She wanted a phone like me and Sandy had. A phone that she could text and get FaceBook and watch TikTok videos. I know, I am a bit ashamed about TikTok it was my doing. I introduced her and she loves it. Sooooo I got her a smart phone. She is not techno savvy at all and she will be the first to tell you that. She had never texted in her life.

I got the phone a day or two before our trip so that we could help teach her how to use it. And I knew her neighbor and good friend Kathy would help her once she got home. I have to tell you she loved the phone and within thirty minutes she was saying “was that my phone?” to see her so excited over something and learn something new just did my heart good. We set up the texting and calling first and got her used to that and then I introduced her to FaceBook. When we started going through the list to see who she would send friend requests to she agonized over many of them. She said “well I don’t really know them that well should I be sending a friend request?” Isn’t that an age old question? We had so much fun just watching her discover all of this. I am afraid we may have overwhelmed her a little. I talked to her right after we got back from the trip and she was using it, and then I got a text from her yesterday so that is a good sign.

While we were on our trip, we went to the Alcatraz East Crime Museum in Pigeon Forge, it was very interesting and I could have spent hours in there. We so wanted to visit Anakeesta Theme Park, but the line and the crowds were crazy and we chose not to wait to get in. Another time for sure. We walked across the street from Anakeesta and had nachos, chicken tenders and Bahama Mamas at the Daiquiri Shak. It was so yummy!!! We sat at an open air table and enjoyed the river running right beside us. It was perfect. And of course we did a little shopping. Pat and Tammy are not big on shopping.

***The Sisters, From L to R. Sandy, Pat, Tammy and me.***

And as always the Sister Trip seems to end almost before it gets started. We headed home on Wednesday and went back to our day to day. We still laugh over our time together and will until next year.

But as I mentioned the colors in our area are absolutely beautiful!!!

***Sunrise from my back yard on Friday morning.***

Remember the link party I did a few weeks ago and Linked to The Weekly Smile? I am asking what made you smile this week? For me it would be teaching my sister how to use her first smart phone and getting to spend several uninterrupted days with my sisters.

I hope you have a wonderful week.

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!!1

Hello November!!!

I barely made it out of my house yesterday without Scruffy strapped to me. We spent the two days over the weekend cuddling and chilling at home and if anything that makes him even more needy. He won’t let me out of his sight.

I decided that I was going to splurge this past weekend and do absolutely nothing. I have a couple of really busy weeks coming up and the plan was that when I pulled my car into the garage on Friday evening I would not get it back out until Monday. I felt like I just needed the down time. With the election looming, covid, work and everything I just needed that time to regenerate. Do you ever feel that way? Well that is just what I did. I stayed at home all weekend and didn’t go anywhere!!!!

Visions of all the things I would do over the weekend were dancing in my head on Friday evening. I would watch movies, read, knit, catch up on my writing, etc. etc. And a lot of that did happen but of course life gets in the way sooooo, backtrack just a bit.

On Thursday night, the night before my big forty eight hour sabbatical, Mark told me the sink in the kitchen was stopped up. We have had some issues with the pipes under the sink. We built this house over twenty years ago, I think the pipes have held up pretty well. I may have mentioned that I do all the plumbing in the family. Mark says it’s because I have smaller hands. Yep that’s what it is. Turns out we have a major problem under the sink and it is probably going to take more than this plumber can handle. We will have to call in a real life plumber. So I had some cleaning under the sink to take care of. I couldn’t run the dishwasher because of the pipes under the sink being clogged or whatever. I was having to wash dishes in the sink in my laundry room. Luckily it’s right next to the kitchen. This did hinder by downtime just a little.

The idea of not doing anything for two whole days sounds wonderful and just plain decadent. But in reality doing nothing for two days sort of bores me. It makes me think of all I need to do around the house. It makes me feel sluggish and unmotivated. I guess there has to be a happy medium in there. I did read an entire book over the weekend for Book Club. More about that book later. Plus Daylight Savings Time ended and the time changed and Sunday seemed like forever long. I am actually one of the only people I know who likes Standard Time more than Daylight Savings Time, Yep I do. I love that it is daylight earlier and I don’t care about the darkness. I go to bed really early anyway. Hee hee!!!

For Halloween we did nothing except watch It’s The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. Luckily we have had this on DVD for years. Mark says I am a cross between Sally’s character and Lucy’s character. He says I can be sweet like Sally but bossy like Lucy. What??? I can’t see that. Well maybe. We don’t actually have trick or treaters out where we live. It would probably be scary if we did. I don’t know what I would do if a little costumed trick or treater came to my door. If I ever live in the city where hundreds of children visit and trick or treat I will dress up and have the time of my life. I told a friend at work that if I did have some trick or treaters I guess I could find something for them. She said ” I can see it now, oh come on in, do you want a scarf I just knitted, some cookies or bread,” HA!! Yes that would be me. But it sounds kind of old lady creepy. Anyway!!!

***A lot of cuddling with this girl as well.*** ***Her and Scruffy take turns being on mom’s lap.***

A good weekend a lazy weekend and just what I needed to get ready for the upcoming week. What lies ahead. I am going to be optimistic and say whatever this election holds it will be just what we need. I have faith in that.

OH!!! But on Saturday night I did get an awesome picture of the Blue Moon. The sky was so clear. I remembered to charge my camera battery. I waited patiently until the moon cleared the trees in our woods and AHHHHHH!!! So worth the wait. About 10:00 PM I went out to the deck where I had the tripod and got some photos.